Taconic Wrestlers Gather for Team Banquet
PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- Taconic head wrestling coach Jeremy Tetreault describes his team, its coaches and the wrestlers’ parents as part of one big family.
On Sunday at the Elks Lodge, it sat down for a family dinner.
The team celebrated its 2019 Division 3 State Championship season with a year-end banquet and awards ceremony.
Among the award winners was senior Zabion Powell, who capped his highly decorated high school career with a D3 state championship at 145 pounds, a third place finish in the all-state tournament and a team record 168 wins that included 117 pins.
Not surprisingly, the Most Outstanding Wrestler at the sectional tournament followed that up with the MOW -- lightweight divisions -- of the team on Sunday.
As proud as he is of all those individual achievements, Powell Sunday put the team title first.
“It kind of means everything,” he said. “I’ve been around this team for a lot longer than I’ve been on it. I always trained with them in middle school and whatnot. So I’ve seen this program go from a team with four kids to … we were, what, 30 deep and walked through Western Mass and Berkshire County and won a state championship by two points.
“Really, it’s everything. It’s hard to describe, really.”
And although wrestling is, for all outward appearances, an individual sport, Powell explained it is much more than that.
“When you’re on the mat, it’s about yourself, you’ve got to be,” Powell said. “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
“But it is more about the whole practice room and everything. It’s everyone. Your teammates are what gets you on that mat to give you that opportunity to go on the mat to give you the opportunity to win those matches for yourself. If it’s not for your teammates, you really have nothing.
“It’s more of a team sport than people realize, but you have to be a part of it to really understand.”
Taconic coach Matt Chamberlain talked to the crowd about team contributions at the start of Sunday’s award ceremony.
“If you think because you didn’t score any points at states, that you weren’t a factor on the team -- every single person in that practice room, pushing the other kids, making them better, made a difference,” Chamberlain said. “The state championship came down to two points. It came down to one pin. It came down to Mike Puskey pinning his kid in a wrestleback match. It came down to Zach Mathes losing his first match and pinning his way back and getting fourth. It came down to Zabion [Powell] having the guts to go down, 7-2, and keep wrestling and throw his kid and pin him in the finals.
“We’re pinners. We’re bonus-point hunters. That’s how we won tournaments. And that’s how we won states.”
Joining Powell with team MOW honors on Sunday was Dylan Burke, a Western Mass champion at 182 pounds who took the honor for the heavyweight divisions.
Ryan Scott was named the team’s freshman of the year after a season in which he had to wrestle off against teammates each week just to compete in tournaments but ended up placing fifth at Western Mass.
Mathes was named the team’s most dedicated wrestler. Tetreault said the senior attended every off-season tournament he could throughout his high school career.
The team recognized two most improved wrestlers at Sunday’s ceremony: junior captain MIke LaFreniere and Shawn O’Shea, both sectional champions as individuals.
With returnees like LaFreniere, O’Shea and Burke, who is on pace to eclipse Powell’s school wins record, Sunday’s banquet was as much about looking forward as it was about looking back to the program’s 2019 accomplishments.
“We don’t plan on not winning Western Mass again next year,” Tetreault said.